DETROIT -- Officials trying to solve a global unemployment crisis are hearing good news about an improving world economy but believe that alone will not put millions back to work in the major industrialized nations.
The two-day meeting of labor and finance ministers ending Tuesday will therefore endorse a broad plan of action to keep the jobs issue before the leaders of the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Japan, officials said.
Laura Tyson, head of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers, said the ministers expressed "fair unanimity that the worst of the cyclical problems in the G-7 nations is probably behind us and we are entering a growth period and, with any luck and with the right policies, a sustained period of economic growth."
Similar bullish news came from European officials.
But Tyson repeated another common theme -- that the seven nations must not allow the improving outlook to deter them from taking steps to repair so-called structural problems that lead to high unemployment.
"There was a recognition that 'cyclical' (unemployment) can become structural since people who are unemployed for a long time cannot be easily re-employed," she said.
Added Padraig Flynn, European commissioner for employment: "There is a new conventional wisdom emerging that cyclical recovery will not be the way out, and that major structural problems are there."
He said seven countries are looking for a "third way" to tackle employment problems, one that focuses on such things as training and investment in small businesses to create jobs.
French officials said that a common estimate is that it will take a 2 percent growth in the average industrial countries just to keep unemployment rates stable.
The ministers have reached basic agreement on a set of principles promoting free trade, flexible labor markets, a stable economic environment, investment in job training and fostering small-business growth. Those points will be forwarded to Naples, Italy when the leaders of the seven nations gather there in July for their next economic summit.
The specific details on how to fill out those broad principles were still far from decided. There was some agreement, however, about what paths not to take.
French Economy Minister Alphandery said there would be no "miracle recipe."
He said the seven nations were agreed, however, that erecting new trade barriers, discouraging the introduction of new technology or cutting back work weeks to spread work around were not ways to proceed.
German Economics Minister Guenter Rexrodt said lavish public spending schemes to create jobs were rejected as a solution.
Despite the lack of specifics, U.S. officials were optimistic about what the meeting -- the first one of its kind -- had yielded.
Vice President Al Gore called Monday's discussions "fascinating" and "extraordinary" and predicted the conference would be looked back upon "as one of the most important turning points in the post-war dialogue between the United States and industrialized nations."
U.S. Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen called the session a "very amazing meeting."
"Here you have labor ministers and finance ministers from the major industrial countries of the world with diverse political opinions," he said. "But they all came together on their concern from their home countries over jobs and the creation of jobs and their concern to do something about it," he added.
U.S. President Bill Clinton addressed the conference Monday. Japan came under pressure during the meeting to do more to perk up its own economy to help further the economic recovery.
But that country's labor minister, Chikara Sakaguchi, said "we have done enough" as far as economic stimuli go.
Canada's Human Resources Development Minister, Lloyd Axworthy, described the meeting this way:
"There is no big pressure going on. There is just a good discussion. And unlike a lot of other international meetings I have attended where there are set speeches, this is a really good dialogue. It is very informative."
The two-day meeting of labor and finance ministers ending Tuesday will therefore endorse a broad plan of action to keep the jobs issue before the leaders of the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Japan, officials said.
Laura Tyson, head of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers, said the ministers expressed "fair unanimity that the worst of the cyclical problems in the G-7 nations is probably behind us and we are entering a growth period and, with any luck and with the right policies, a sustained period of economic growth."
Similar bullish news came from European officials.
But Tyson repeated another common theme -- that the seven nations must not allow the improving outlook to deter them from taking steps to repair so-called structural problems that lead to high unemployment.
"There was a recognition that 'cyclical' (unemployment) can become structural since people who are unemployed for a long time cannot be easily re-employed," she said.
Added Padraig Flynn, European commissioner for employment: "There is a new conventional wisdom emerging that cyclical recovery will not be the way out, and that major structural problems are there."
He said seven countries are looking for a "third way" to tackle employment problems, one that focuses on such things as training and investment in small businesses to create jobs.
French officials said that a common estimate is that it will take a 2 percent growth in the average industrial countries just to keep unemployment rates stable.
The ministers have reached basic agreement on a set of principles promoting free trade, flexible labor markets, a stable economic environment, investment in job training and fostering small-business growth. Those points will be forwarded to Naples, Italy when the leaders of the seven nations gather there in July for their next economic summit.
The specific details on how to fill out those broad principles were still far from decided. There was some agreement, however, about what paths not to take.
French Economy Minister Alphandery said there would be no "miracle recipe."
He said the seven nations were agreed, however, that erecting new trade barriers, discouraging the introduction of new technology or cutting back work weeks to spread work around were not ways to proceed.
German Economics Minister Guenter Rexrodt said lavish public spending schemes to create jobs were rejected as a solution.
Despite the lack of specifics, U.S. officials were optimistic about what the meeting -- the first one of its kind -- had yielded.
Vice President Al Gore called Monday's discussions "fascinating" and "extraordinary" and predicted the conference would be looked back upon "as one of the most important turning points in the post-war dialogue between the United States and industrialized nations."
U.S. Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen called the session a "very amazing meeting."
"Here you have labor ministers and finance ministers from the major industrial countries of the world with diverse political opinions," he said. "But they all came together on their concern from their home countries over jobs and the creation of jobs and their concern to do something about it," he added.
U.S. President Bill Clinton addressed the conference Monday. Japan came under pressure during the meeting to do more to perk up its own economy to help further the economic recovery.
But that country's labor minister, Chikara Sakaguchi, said "we have done enough" as far as economic stimuli go.
Canada's Human Resources Development Minister, Lloyd Axworthy, described the meeting this way:
"There is no big pressure going on. There is just a good discussion. And unlike a lot of other international meetings I have attended where there are set speeches, this is a really good dialogue. It is very informative."
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